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Week in Tech: Week in Tech: Watch wobbles, HTC M9 whines and sad news from Nintendo

Amazon dominated the tech headlines this week with its Black Friday-esque Prime Day, in which lots of people were offered discounts on things they didn’t really want to buy. But while Prime Day shifted stock Apple was uncharacteristically quiet about Apple Watch sales, HTC raised our hopes only to dash them again and a generation of gamers mourned the premature death of a gaming giant. Is the Apple Watch a

Is SnapChat-style digital decay on the rise – and should it be welcomed?

Introduction and digital hoarding Data is everywhere. While your photos, documents and emails for the last two decades are probably archived and accessible somewhere, your tweets, social media updates, instant messages and blogs are not only on the internet for all time, but fully indexed and searchable by Google. It was the fashion a few years ago to ditch worldly possessions, live out of a laptop and declare yourself a

Google self-driving car was rear-ended early July, causing injuries

One of Google’s self-driving cars was involved in an accident early in July, in which several people were injured when a vehicle equipped with Google technology was rear-ended by another vehicle, the company said. Several employees suffered minor whiplash in the July 1 incident, when a vehicle drove into the rear of a Lexus RX450h prototype – outfitted by Google with special sensors and software – which had stopped at

Google shares soar as YouTube growth allays fears over Facebook

(Reuters) – Google Inc’s shares surged as much as 14.5 percent on Friday, adding nearly $60 billion to its market value, as strong growth in mobile ad revenue allayed concerns its YouTube business could be hurt by Facebook Inc’s push into video. The surge in the stock, which sent the Nasdaq composite index to a record intraday high, came a day after Google reported better-than-expected revenue and profit for the

Accounting probe may pressure Toshiba to write down Westinghouse

By Ritsuko Ando and Reiji Murai TOKYO (Reuters) – Toshiba Corp is set to overhaul its management after an investigation into its accounting practices concludes early next week, but a more thorough housecleaning, including a writedown on its Westinghouse nuclear business, may be needed to regain confidence amid Japan’s biggest corporate scandal in five years. Toshiba said an independent committee it commissioned to look into accounting irregularities – which a

T-Mobile to pay $17.5 million to settle U.S. 911 outage investigation

By Alina Selyukh WASHINGTON (Reuters) – T-Mobile US Inc will pay $17.5 million to settle a U.S. investigation of two 911 service outages last year, marking the largest such fine by the Federal Communications Commission. The FCC on Friday said it found that better safeguards in T-Mobile’s 911 network architecture would have prevented the outages, which together lasted for about three hours on Aug. 8 and affected almost all of

Samsung scrapes to victory in proxy battle over $8 billion merger

By Joyce Lee and Sohee Kim SEOUL (Reuters) – Samsung Group’s founding family on Friday scored a narrow win in a landmark proxy battle, fending off an activist investor opposed to an $8 billion deal that cements its grip as a new generation prepares to take the reins of South Korea’s biggest conglomerate. At an often-heated shareholder meeting, investors in builder Samsung C&T Corp approved an all-share takeover offer from